VSF is pleased to announce a solo project by Elisa Jensen (b. 1965) in & Milk opening on April 27, 2024. Heart Off Guard brings together a selection of Jensen’s paintings made between 2008 and the present. The title of the exhibition is lifted from a poem by Seamus Heaney titled Postscript which describes a mundane scene - driving along the coast from one place to another - and being bowled over by the experience of light, water, sky, and movement; fleeting, uncontainable, momentary awe.
This sensation of being bowled over by the commonplace pervades Jensen’s paintings. The most recent works, all titled Riverview, are intimately scaled meditations on the passing of time outside a window. Each shows a similar view from the window of Jensen’s childhood home, observed as she was packing up her parents’ belongings after they passed. Her larger works, which include paintings of her young daughters exploring nature and common street scenes in Bushwick, present this sense of awe as all pervasive. The emotional tenor of these works is consistent - each scene is observed carefully with an eye to flickers of light, the passing of time, and the attempt to catch some small element of that surging feeling on the canvas.
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Elisa Jensen (b. 1965, ives and works in Brooklyn, NY) exhibits combine the mystical qualities of nature, transcendental explorations of optics, and figurative depictions that reflect the artist’s lived perspective and memories; selected exhibitions include Isabel Sullivan Gallery, (Manhattan, NY); Pamela Salisbury Gallery (Hudson, NY); Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery (Tribeca, NY); David & Schweitzer Contemporary, (Brooklyn, NY); John Davis Gallery (Hudson, NY); The Painting Center, (New York, NY); Valentine Gallery; (New York, NY); Kimmel Gallery, (New York, NY), Royal Danish Consulate General (New York, NY); Morsø Kunstforening, Denmark. She has received awards from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the National Academy Museum and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Jensen teaches at both the Pratt Institute and the New York Studio School.